Road trip tackles world of border issues

Journey to border teaches teens about U.S. immigration policy.

Journey to border teaches teens about U.S. immigration policy.

September 01, 2006|JUDY BRADFORD Tribune Correspondent

SOUTH BEND Do Mexican immigrants help or hurt our economy? Should we welcome them, or close our borders? Would an organized guest worker program serve as a solution? Seven local teenagers are better equipped to ponder and discuss these questions after spending a week in San Diego, near the U.S. border with Tijuana, Mexico. They traveled there as part of the RESILIENCE Program funded through the Center for the Homeless in South Bend. RESILIENCE stands for Respectful, Excellent, Special, Intelligent, Loving, Incredible, Energetic, Noble, Caring and Enduring. The teens met with border patrol officers to get the perspective on American enforcement of the border -- but also with groups trying to help immigrants who want to work in the United States. The trip was designed to help the teens understand a complex issue. "One of our goals was to see how some issues do not have easy solutions," said Andrew Hoyt, residential operations specialist for the center. While there, the teens even spoke with two Mexican men who were trying to get into the country illegally. It happened while they were standing at the border fence, speaking with a member of the Border Angels, a group that is sympathetic to human needs for water and clothing in desert areas where immigrants enter illegally. "The border patrol saw us talking to them, and actually came over and told us that we couldn't interview them," says Brianna Lamar, one of the RESILIENCE students who went on the trip. Before the border patrol came, however, Brianna and the other students learned that one of the men trying to jump over the fence into the United States had been a construction worker here. He had been kicked out when officials learned of his illegal status, after he was hospitalized following a construction accident. The other immigrant, who spoke little English, was trying to slip into the States to earn money to send back to his wife and children. He had worked in this country several times. Brianna, who is a sophomore at Riley High School, says she learned not to revert to stereotypes when it comes to immigration issues, and thinks that many of the immigrants are "only looking for jobs that we (Americans) don't want." U.S. border patrolmen told the teens about the problems with increased crime in states along the border. Other costs, like health care, housing and education also become a problem for local communities when the federal government does not help those communities financially. After comparing border patrol statistics (citing increased crime rates as the result of illegal immigration) with her short interviews with immigrants, Brianna said she has decided that "some immigrants are good, and some have been bad." Shavaughn Sims, 13, says she used to think that immigrants "were just sneaking into America to mess up things here." Now, she thinks they are mostly "just looking for a way to help their families." "You know that expression, 'You can't judge a book by its cover'? Well, it's like that," says the Jackson Intermediate Center eighth-grader. The teenagers prepared for their Aug. 6-11 trip by reading about border issues, and by meeting with immigration issue experts from the University of Notre Dame. They also read "The New Colossus," the poem by Emma Lazarus inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, especially the part that reads: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. ..." The group was led by Jackie Clark, a recent Notre Dame graduate who organized the trip, but has now taken a social work job in New York City. Funds for the trip came through a private grant earmarked specifically for an educational trip. Hoyt said the trip to the border was deemed a good project because border issues have ramifications for Mexican immigrants who work here in Indiana.